Presentations

Invited lecture, “The Royal Ideology of the Georgian Bagratids: Exceptionalism and the Limits of Byzantinization on the Edge of the Iranian World,” University of Tokyo Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Tokyo, Japan, June 2014.

Invited lecture, “Feuding Bishops, Intransigent Nationalists, and the Battle for Nagorno-Karabakh: Contested Visions of Caucasian Albania from Late Antiquity until Today,” co-sponsored by the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Armenian Studies Program, University of California at Berkeley, February 2014.

2013

“Parthians and the Christianization of Caucasia,” Byzantine Studies Conference, Yale University, New Haven, October 2013.

Invited lecture, “Mongol Caucasia: Regional Historiographies and Social Change in an Integrating Eurasian World,” The Mongols from the Margins: New Perspectives on Central Asians in World History, UCLA Asia Institute, Los Angeles, February 2013.

Invited lecture, “Armenia, Armenians, and the New World History,” The Vahe and Armine Meghrouni Lecture Series in Armenian Studies, Armenian Studies Program, University of California at Irvine, February 2013.

Invited Lecture, “New Perspectives on ‘The Land of Heroes and Giants’: The Georgian Sources for Sasanian History,” The Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, University of California at Irvine, February 2013.

Invited lecture, “Shedding the Civilizational Straitjacket: Critical Metageographies, Synergetic Historiographies, and Expanded Armenian Vistas in the Pre-Modern Age,” 30th Anniversary Symposium of the Armenian Studies Program, Armenia in World History, the World in Armenian History, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, October 2011.

Invited lecture, “Caucasia and the Making of the Second Byzantine Commonwealth: Byzantinization, Cosmopolitanism, and the Georgian Athonites,” Fourth International Symposium of the International Centre for Christian Studies at the Orthodox Church of Georgia Dedicated to the 1000th Birthday of St. Giorgi Mtatsmindeli, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, May 2011.

Invited lecture, “The Albanian Palimpsest: Manipulated Memories Old and New in the Imagination of Caucasian Albania,” Classical History Seminar, Historisches Institut, University of Bern, Switzerland, March 2011.

Invited lecture, “Christian Caucasia and Byzantine Culture,” Byzantine Days of the Cultural Capital: An International Conference on Byzantium’s Acceptance, Transformation and Transmission of Culture to the World, Turkish Historical Society, Istanbul, May 2010.

Invited lecture, “Writing and Rewriting the Schism: Historiographical Perspectives on the Separation of the Georgian and Armenian Churches,” International Theological Symposium in Honor of the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of St. Grigol Peradze, University of St. Andrew the First-Called, T‘bilisi, Georgia, September 2009.

Invited lecture,“The Ark and the Harp Revisited: Kingship on the Edges of the Byzantine World,” University of St. Andrew the First-Called, co-sponsored by the American Research Institute in the South Caucasus (ARISC), T‘bilisi, September 2009.

Invited lecture, “Back to the Future: Nationalist Historiographies in Post-Soviet Caucasia,” Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, October 2007.

Invited lecture, “The Case for Caucasia: Regional Coherence and the Limits of National Historiography,” The Caucasus: Directions and Disciplines, sponsored by the Franke Institute, the Center for Eastern European and Russia/Eurasia Studies, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus, University of Chicago, May 2007.

2006

Invited lecture, “‘The Land of Heroes and Giants’: What Archaeologists Can Learn from K‘art‘lis c‘xovreba about Georgia and the Iranian World,” Third International Symposium on Caucasian Iberia and Its Neighbors in the Achaemenid and Post-Achaemenid Period, sponsored by the National Museum of Georgia and the Ot‘ar Lort‘k‘ip‘anidze Centre for Archaeological Studies, T‘bilisi, October 2006. NB: Paper read in absentia because of the Russian Federation’s transportation blockade of Georgia.

“The Making of the Medieval European Georgian Nation,” Seventh Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 2006.

Chair and commentator, “Political and Social Function of Literary Landscapes,” Mythical Landscapes: Then and Now, sponsored by Erevan State University and DAAD, Erevan State University, Erevan, Armenia, September 2005.

Invited lecture, “Duin III, A Historiographical Odyssey: Towards the Relationship of the Armenian and Eastern Georgian Churches, 4th-Early 7th Century,” Where the Only-Begotten Descended: The Church of Armenia through the Ages, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 2004.

Roundtable on Graduate Programs in World History, participant, at the conference World History: The Next Ten Years, World History Center, Northeastern University, Boston, March 2004.

2003

“The Ark and the Harp: Royal Ideology on the Edge of Commonwealth,” World History Association annual conference, Georgia State University, Atlanta, June 2003.

Invited lecture, “Georgian Sources for the Prosopography of the Byzantine Commonwealth, 1025-1204,” Byzantium and the Crusades: Towards an Integrated Prosopography (1081-1204), British Academy, London, December 2002.

“Historiography of Power: Reorientation as a Strategy of Dynastic Legitimacy in Medieval Georgia, 9th-13th Century,” One Ring to Rule Them All?: Power and Power Relations in East European Politics and Societies, University of California—Berkeley, November 2002.

“Numismatics and the World Survey (or, Coins, Crossroads, and World History),” SEWHA annual conference, Columbus State University, Georgia, October 2002.

Invited lecture, “Teaching Mongol and Eurasian History for the AP World History Exam,” World History Institute (sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities, World History Association, and the College Board), Kennesaw State University, Georgia, June 2002.

Invited plenary session lecture, “Caucasia’s Place in the Eurasian World: The Testimony of C‘xorebay k‘art‘velt‘a mep‘et‘a,” Fourth International Symposium on Caucasiology, The Ivane Javaxishvili T‘bilisi State University, T‘bilisi, Republic of Georgia, May 2002.

“The State of World History in the Southeast,” roundtable participant, annual conference of the Georgia Association of Historians, Jekyll Island, Georgia, April 2002.

“Bumberazi: Persian-Like Aspects of Early Christian Georgian Kingship,” Interdisciplinary Workshop on Religion and Rulership in the Middle Ages, Central European University (co-sponsored by MAJESTAS), Budapest, Hungary, February 2002.

2001

“The Making of an Autocephalous ‘National’ Church: The Church in K‘art‘li Becomes the K‘art‘velian Church, 4th-7th Century,” XXe Congrès international des Études byzantines, Sorbonne, Paris, August 2001.

Invited lecture, “Nomads over Eurasia: The Mongol Integration of Eurasia in the Thirteenth Century,” World History Institute (sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities, World History Association, and the College Board), Kennesaw State University, Georgia, June 2001.

“The Center of the World (in a Small Corner of Eurasia): Constructing a Master Historical Narrative in Imperial and Soviet Georgia,” Department of History brown bag, University of Arizona, Tucson, March 2001.

“Negotiating the Edge of Empire: Royal Ideology on the Byzantine Periphery,” annual conference of the Medieval Academy of America, Arizona State University, Tempe, March 2001.

“Chronology, Crossroads, and Commonwealths: World Regional Schemes and the Lessons of Greater Caucasia,” Interactions: Regional Studies, Global Processes, and Historical Analysis, symposium sponsored by the American Historical Association, World History Association, Library of Congress, et al, held at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, March 2001.

Invited lecture, “The Mongols and the Integration of Eurasia: On the Verge of the Modern World?,” World History Institute, sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities, World History Association, and the College Board, Kennesaw State University, Georgia, June 2000.

“Hayk and the Ethnogenesis of the Georgians: Some Armenian Underpinnings of C‘xorebay k‘art‘velt‘a mep‘et‘a (The Life of the K‘art‘velian Kings),” annual conference of the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA), Chicago, December 1998.

“When Eurasian Worlds Collide: Persian and Byzantine Influences upon the Other Georgia,” SEWHA annual conference, Clayton College and State University, Morrow, Georgia, October 1998.

Invited paper, “The Making of Imagining History at the Crossroads: Persia, Byzantium, and the Architects of the Written Georgian Past,” ceremony for the 1998 University of Michigan Distinguished Dissertation Awards, Ann Arbor, March 1998.

“Co-Existence and Confrontation in Caucasia: The Complexion of Armeno-K‘art‘velian (Georgian) Relations in Medieval Georgian Historiography,” annual conference of ACMRS, Arizona State University, Tempe, February 1998.

Invited paper, “Caucasia: A Eurasian Crossroads in World Perspective,” Department of History, Georgia State University, Atlanta, January 1998.

1997

“Sense of Community in Early Georgian Hagiography,” Byzantine Studies Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison, September 1997.

1996

“The Impact of Heraclius’ Invasion of Caucasia on Medieval ‘Georgian’ Self-Identity,” Byzantine Studies Conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, October 1996.